"It is This Way With Men"
They are pounded into the earth
like nails; move an inch,
they are driven down again.
The earth is sore with them.
It is a spiny fruit
that has lost hope
of being raised and eaten.
It can only ripen and ripen.
And men, they too are wounded.
They too are sifted from their loss
and are without hope. The core
softens. The pure flesh softens
and melts. There are thorns, there
are the dark seeds, and they end.
- men defines as tools, nails
- "driven down" (3) implies negative connotations on surface level, but to remember what work nails do, and therefore men by association are capable of providing unity and cohesion.
- the "earth" being sore implies a continued negative connotation...corrosive?
- the metaphor and allusion to fruit leads to further complexity --- fruit as a traditionally feminine image : reproduction/fertility : seeds.
- "spines" phallic symbol, possible defense mechanisms? Freudian implications?
- hopelessness - line 6 - possible impotence?
- line 9 - men are wounded too, but aren't they previously injured, as seen in lines 6 and 7 -- hopelessness.
- lines 11-14 : fruit images return, rotting fruit = death, highly obvious, but still there..."the core softens...pure flesh melts" leaving tainted flesh (men)
- line 13: thorns - phallic = dangerous? possible social and gender critique?
- yet this hopelessness, the desire to be chosen and eaten, adherence to "tradition" ultimately leads to destruction.
I like how skin and humans seems so malleable in this poem: "softens and melts" "sifted", "pounded", "raised and eaten". Any sense of agency seems to be handled or worked from the fleshy parts of man.
ReplyDeleteRemember, though, that this exercise focuses on objective and visible phenomena within the text. In each of these items, you have also offered interpretation. Let's spend this time, at least, trying to find the most evocative and specific textual identifications. Go back to your Plath studies.
ReplyDelete